Patreon Announcement and Ch 34 Changes

Hey everyone! 

I'll go over the edits to Ch 34 first. I really dislike doing retcons, but in this case it was necessary. After a lot of discussions with patrons and some of my friends, I realized that the twist at the end of the chapter was structurally incorrect for where it was. 

D3 will happen, but I'm thinking it'll be better served somewhere in book 3. I didn't think what it would be like to read that now after so long of book two and it was just fundamentally wrong right now. I updated the chapter with a notification if you want to reread it, but I'll have the changes at the bottom. 

Sorry for the sudden change and announcement, but I think this is better overall. I hope you like the edits and how the updated Ch 34 ended. 

***

Patreon Announcement!

I also realized that not everyone reads comments so it's time for a general schedule update! With the end of school coming up and everything, I've been struggling with a lot of burnout all around. Chapter releases have been reduced to once a week for the foreseeable future, but I'm hopeful that in the summer after I get another job and settle into that, I'll be able to ramp things back up to twice a week. 

Royal Road is fairly likely to stay at once a week, but it could bump back up. 

It's not a situation where I'm tired of the story or anything like that so don't worry about that! I'm just literally writing PI every day and when I'm not writing, I'm doing school work and according to my friends that's not a real break. So far, reducing like this has helped tremendously though, but I'm sorry for any inconvenience. 

Ch 34 edits:

But it wasn’t a set piece that was under attack but his home.

Something slipped around him even as the portal formed. He felt his home dimension start to slip away as the portal snapped. Cracks as big as his wrist spiraled throughout the disk as starlightning lashed everywhere. Visions of other dimensions became clearer. What he saw and felt of home became murky as the other dimensions crowded in. Fear kindled in Eli’s gut, hot and viscous. Every time one of his portals broke, it created a volatile explosion that only got worse the more powerful his spatial power became.

Images crunched into his mind one after the other.

A series of mountain peaks with a gray ocean all around and at the top of the largest peak a silver dragon roared.

Urban buildings similar to what there were in home, but people in strange militaristic outfits fought with a startling display of power.

Monolithic buildings taller than any he had ever seen with enough advanced technology that he bet if Roman saw it too he might have hopped through.

White walls surrounding a country with nothing but a barren wasteland outside.

Blood dribbled over his fingers from the gouges in his palm. Eli let it happen as he wrung Aurora Stardust and Stellar Body dry and infused them both straight into Astral Starspace. He was going home and nothing would stop him.

Space stabilized and stilled with a heave of effort that pinched and tore at him. He wobbled as a wave of feebleness washed over him.

Home beckoned.

“I got you.” Maeve slung him over her shoulders. He swayed with the movement. It seemed like the momentum carried on in an endless cascade. Nausea spiked at him.

Cracks snapped through his shoddily built pocket dimension as the earth shook. Vibrations rattled its way up his bones as the portals connected for a moment. A riptide of space and gravity squelched around them.

Maeve sprinted into the archway and through the portal without any hesitation. Eli watched from a distance as Roman followed them through.

Fractures cracked through space with a roar as the sub-dimension buckled in two. Rick and Adelaide shouted as they struggled to follow them, but the portal in their backyard dragged them back into their own dimension.

Power burst out from the portal in a nova of force and heat that roasted a wave of greants, metallic insects, and ghouls. Concrete melted.

Screams hung in the air.

Eli flopped uselessly to help. To do anything.

Restoration slowly marched through his body as Stellar Body rebuilt the devastation of stars in his void and Aurora Stardust pulsed inside of him. Convulsions rattled him as Maeve created and snapped out dozens of lightning spears that exploded spawn.

Roman didn’t even stumble as he transformed into his armor and fired on the enemy. Bullets and electromagnetic rays bolted into the enemy ranks.

Desperation gnawed at him as he willed the claim power screen to open.

<You have selected Volcanic Devastation Ev. 1/Lv. 0 (Legendary). Would you like to equip it?>

No.

Eli pushed at the space around him. Astral Starspace whimpered with a blinding lance of pain that sent tears rolling down his cheeks. He sensed his parents and his sisters and executed a few trades, one after the other.

<You have initiated trades with:

Adelaide Newton for: Phytomancer’s Regency Ev. 3 (Rare)

Rick Newton for: Cybermancer’s Tech Ev. 3 (Uncommon)

Lana Newton for: Feral Steel Ghost (Ferrosteel Forge, Unrelenting Hunt)

Lyra Newton for: Volcanic Devastation Ev. 1 (Legendary) and Hunter’s Bounty Ev. 0 (Common)>

<Waiting for other party to respond.>

Eli bit his lip until the tang of iron coated his tongue.

Maeve continued to raze the enemy into smoldering piles of ash as she threw an endless array of lightning them. Roman grappled with an oversized iron hornet with a stinger like a hydraulic drill.

<Lyra Newton has accepted your trade.>

<Lana Newton has accepted your trade.>

<Rick Newton has accepted your trade.>

<Adelaide Newton has accepted your trade.>

An instant earthquake toppled the earth as an avalanche of obsidian appeared before shattering into a howl of volcanic glass. All the shriveled up greants already slain bloomed into lashing vines that pulverized their nearby brethren desperate to save them.

Lana ascended in a flash of silverlight and a twist of gravity before a meteor of silverlight burst out of her hands and crashed through the ranks.

Storm clouds rumbled as a tornado spun out of the crevasse where Dad held back the spawn he could.

Eli smiled.